Using pipelines for website development and testing¶

How the pipelines feature works¶

The Cloud Platform pipelines feature executes the instructions you provide, transforming application source code into a build artifact which you can then test and deploy. Here is how the Cloud Platform pipelines feature works:

• Create a build definition file, hosted in your Git repository. For an example, see acquia-pipelines.yml.
• Connect the Cloud Platform pipelines feature to your repository, whether it’s hosted by Cloud Platform or externally at Bitbucket or Github.
• Trigger pipelines jobs when creating or reopening pull requests, pushing commits, or pushing tags. You can also trigger jobs manually through the user interface, or the command-line client’s pipelines start command.
• The pipelines feature clones the Git source repository and checks out the specified branch.
• Pipelines looks for a YAML-format file named acquia-pipelines.yaml in the selected Git branch, and executes its instructions in your container. The instructions have access to environment variables, and can perform multiple actions in a single pipelines job, such as assembling your application from different code bases, transforming source files into compiled files ready to deploy, and running tests.
• If the pipelines job completes without errors, Cloud Platform commits all the files and directories created by the instructions as a build artifact, named pipelines-build-[BRANCHNAME], to a build branch in your application’s Cloud Platform Git repository, which you can deploy programmatically or manually. Other repositories can’t be targets.
• You can view the results of each job with the pipelines user interface in Cloud Platform, the status posted to your pull request on your third-party code repository, and the pipelines status and logs commands.

For a list of software available in your container, and resource limits on pipelines jobs, see Resources for containers and pipelines jobs.

Availability of the pipelines feature¶

The Cloud Platform pipelines feature is available as an add-on for Cloud Platform Enterprise and Site Factory subscribers, and requires Cloud Platform CD on Cloud Platform. To obtain the Cloud Platform pipelines feature for your subscription, contact your Account Manager.

Getting started¶

Use the following general steps to start using the Cloud Platform pipelines feature for your website development and testing:

1. Confirm your Cloud Platform account’s role has the Execute pipelines permission. You may also need the Add an environment permission.

   Note for Site Factory subscribers

   These permissions must be assigned through the Cloud Platform teams and permissions system, and not the Site Factory Management Console.

2. Optional: Connect your application to an external Git repository.

3. Create a build definition file.

4. Start a pipeline job in the Cloud Platform user interface or the command-line interface.